Arkansans embrace challenge of cold Classic

— Mike McClelland of Bella Vista and Mark Davis of Mount Ida will cast for the top championship in professional bass fishing this weekend at the 43rd Bassmaster Classic on Grand Lake O’ The Cherokees.

Fifty-three anglers will compete in the three-day tournament. The entire field will fish today and Saturday, and the top 25 anglers with the heaviest combined two day weights will fish Sunday for the $500,000 grand prize and the coveted Bassmaster Classic trophy.

Anglers qualified for the tournament through seven different avenues. Davis and McClelland got in by finishing among the top 20 in Angler of the Year points. Davis finished fourth, and McClelland finished 17th.

McClelland is a favorite to win, one chief reason being Grand Lake is less than an hour from his home. He has fished it for many years in all seasons, and he won a Bassmaster EliteSeries tournament there in 2006. Unlike many of the other anglers, he was delighted to see cold, icy weather move into the area this week. He said that’s advantageous to him because it will help keep weights low and will favor slow, methodical anglers.

“The weather conditions favor what I was hoping to see here,” McClelland said. “I was very concerned because with the third week of February, there’s always an opportunity to get a 70-degree week and things just go ballistic. That’s the last thing I wanted to see because this lake is such a phenomenal lake that you would have seen a lot of guys catch a lot of big bags of fish.

“This is going to make it more of a tactical tournament. It’s going to take a little patience, and I feel like I’m as patient a guy as there is.”

McClelland compared the weather to employing a half-court defense to keep the score low in a basketball game. He said he excels in tournaments where bites are at a premium.

“If we would have gotten into 50-degree water temperatures, we would have seen records broken,” McClelland said. “Not to say we couldn’t see that happen, but it would have happened if the water temperatures skyrocketed. It could have been one of those deals where everybody caught giant bags, and I didn’t want to see it that way. I wanted it to be tougher.”

Davis said the weather will be a major hurdle for him. He said everybody caught fish in the snow during Wednesday’s practice. Clear, blue skies and high pressure are forecast for today. Those are tough conditions for bass fishing.

“The way this lake is setting up right now is that most of the baitfish are really, really deep,” Davis said. “They’re in 30 feet of water, and when that’s the case, usually the majority of fish is out there with them. I can’t catch them. I’ve tried.

“The Alabama Rig is the tool to catch them like that, but of course we can’t use it, and I’m glad of that. So I’ve got to fish for that percentage of fish that are catchable that are in shallow water.”

Davis said he has found the fish and knows where to go, but that is only part of the equation.

“This time of year, fish either bite or they don’t bite,” Davis said. “You go to those areas where fish are at, but just because they’re there doesn’t mean you’ll catch them.”

McClelland and Davis said that 18 pounds per day, or about 55 pounds total, should be enough to win.

“I came over here with the feeling that if I could get seven to 10 bites a day, I was going to be happy,” McClelland said. “This time of year, that’s good. If I can get that, I’ll be OK because I think they’ll be the right kind of fish.”

Bassmaster Classic

WHEN Today through Sunday

WHERE Grand Lake O’ The Cherokees, Tulsa

WHO 53 anglers from the Elite Series, Opens Series, Bassmaster Federation Nation, Bassmaster Weekend Series, Bassmaster College Champion and top finishers in the Angler of the Year race.

TAKEOFFS 7 a.m. Central, Wolf Creek Park.

WEIGH-INS Doors open at 3 p.m. at BOK Center in Tulsa.

OTHER ACTIVITIES Bassmaster Classic Outdoors Expo, today through Sunday.

Sports, Pages 23 on 02/22/2013

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